Paul Brahms is an artist based on Peaks Island , Maine. Born and raised
in Portland, he began painting in his early teen years, studying the
works in galleries such as the former Barridoff gallery, where he saw
the work of Alfred Chadbourn, Joseph Nicoletti, Robert Solotaire and
others. In high school he was able to focus on painting , including
visits to Alfred Chadbourn’s studio for lessons.

He received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1986, and
subseqently worked in New York City, Italy, France, but always returning
to Maine.

In Portland he worked with the muralist, sign painter, illustrator and
architectural historian/designer Tony Taylor where he acquired a practical
knowledge of mural painting and commercial art processes. He also spent
many years teaching art in continuing education programs.

His fine art is inspired by the tradition of american realists, with
an interest in the drama of the landscape, romantic light, painterly
brushwork and an earth tone palette. Mixed with this comfortable and
familiar language and subject matter is a desire to rethink this language
and question the automatic reliance on beauty as an artistic goal.

The present work is mostly about the automobile, its form and surface
and relationship to the landscape. The automobile is itself a piece
of sculpture and a painting, and as such becomes not just a metaphor
for art. One goal is to bring together the processes of art and of non
-art to see how they might partake of one another.